Channel Island English

Last updated
Channel Island English
Region Channel Islands
EthnicityChannel Islanders
Dialects
  • Alderney
  • Guernsey
  • Jersey
Latin (English alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog None

Channel Island English refers to Alderney English, Guernsey English, and Jersey English and similar dialects of English found in the other Channel Islands.

Contents

Variations

Alderney English

Alderney English is the variety of English spoken by some residents of Alderney. It is questionable whether this is a separate dialect: due to Alderney's small size and high rate of immigration and emigration, particularly to/from nearby Guernsey and the UK, a high proportion of the population speaks the English of their place of origin, while many people who have been educated in Guernsey in their youth have acquired a way of speaking that is close to Guernsey English.

Thus Alderney English currently corresponds quite closely to standard English, with a tendency towards mild archaism due to the population demographic in which the over-50s are the largest group.

Its distinguishing feature is a small but significant number of loan words from Guernésiais (the variety of Norman spoken on the neighbouring island of Guernsey), Legal French (which was the language of legislation before the Second World War) and a very much smaller number of words that have come down from Auregnais (now a dead language, it is no longer certain whether there are any rememberers still alive).

An examples of a word used in Alderney that appears neither in standard English nor in Guernsey English is "Impôt" (meaning 'rubbish tip/recycling centre' and not 'tax/imposition' as elsewhere). In addition there is an idiosyncratic pronunciation of certain local surnames, "Dupont" as French pronunciation: [dipõ] and "Simon" as [symõ], rather than the standard Parisian pronunciation. Any remainder of the historic influence of Auregnais on Alderney English is very hard to discern, since Guernésiais and Auregnais differed only slightly.

Guernsey English

Guernsey English is the dialect of English spoken in Guernsey, distinguished by having considerable influence from Guernésiais, the variety of Norman indigenous to Guernsey.

The dialect contains terms such as buncho (from Dgèrnésiais: bond d'tchu) for the English "somersault"; "it picks" instead of "it stings", from the Guernsey equivalent of the French "ça pique"; "chirry" for "goodbye"; and "Budlo Night" instead of Bonfire Night on 5 November.

Often Guernsey people will add the word "Eh" to the end of a sentence, inferring a general agreement that something is held to be true or correct. It can also be used in the context of asking a question or seeking reassurance that what was said is correct if it is believed to be a contentious issue.

Jersey English

Jersey English is a dialect of English spoken in Jersey, Channel Islands, the accent of which has been likened to that of South African English. [1] It is influenced by the use of Jèrriais and Jersey Legal French.

Jersey English has imported a number of Jersey Legal French titles and terminology. Many of these, in turn, derive from Jèrriais. The following are examples likely to be encountered in daily life and in news reports in Jersey:

  • rapporteur
  • en défaut (in default, i.e. late for a meeting) [2]
  • en désastre
  • au greffe
  • greffier (clerk-of-Court or the States)
  • bâtonnier (lawyer in charge of Bar, particularly for legal aid)
  • mandataire
  • autorisé (returning officer at elections, or other functions)
  • projet (parliamentary bill)
  • vraic
  • côtil
  • temps passé (time past)
  • vin d'honneur (municipal or official reception)
  • centenier
  • vingtenier
  • chef de police (senior centenier)
  • branchage (pronounced in English as the Jèrriais cognate even though spelt in the French manner - trimming hedges and verges on property border; also used jocularly for a haircut)
  • seigneur (feudal lord of the manor)


Vowels

Channel Islands English vowels [3]
Lexical set Channel Islands EnglishExamples
KIT[i~ï]bid, pit
DRESS[ɛ~ɛ̈]bed, pet
TRAP[æ]bad, pat
LOT[ɒ~ɒ̈]cot, bother, off
CLOTH
STRUT[ɔ~ʌ]bud, putt
FOOT[ʊ]good, foot, put
BATH[ɑː~ɑ̟ː]grass, father, farm
PALM
START
NURSE[ɜː~əː]bird, herd, furry
FLEECE[iː~ɪi]bead, peat
FACE[eɪ~e̞ɪ]bay, hey, fate
THOUGHT[ɔː~oː]dawn, caught, born, more
NORTH
FORCE
GOAT[ɔʊ~əʊ]road, stone, toe
GOOSE[uː~ʉː]booed, food
PRICE[ɒɪ~ɑɪ~ʌɪ]buy, write
CHOICE[ɔɪ~oɪ]boy, voice
MOUTH[aʊ]
how, mouse
NEAR[ɪə~iə]beer, fear
SQUARE[ɛə~ɛː]bear, hair
CURE[ʊə]fury, pure, rural
Reduced vowels
LETTER[ə~œ]runner, butter
COMMA[ə]Rosa, cuppa

Consonants

Morphosyntax

"I love Guernsey, me" - this slogan on a cup demonstrates the typical use of the emphatic pronoun Guernsey 2012 035.jpg
"I love Guernsey, me" - this slogan on a cup demonstrates the typical use of the emphatic pronoun

Examples of structures used by people in the Channel Islands are:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Channel Islands</span> Archipelago in the English Channel

The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, consisting of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm and some smaller islands. Historically, they are the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy. Although they are not part of the United Kingdom, the UK is responsible for the defence and international relations of the islands as it is for the other Crown Dependency, the Isle of Man, and the British Overseas Territories. The Crown Dependencies are neither members of the Commonwealth of Nations, nor part of the European Union. They have a total population of about 171,916, and the bailiwicks' capitals, Saint Helier and Saint Peter Port, have populations of 33,500 and 18,207 respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alderney</span> Jurisdiction of the Bailiwick of Guernsey

Alderney is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is 3 miles (5 km) long and 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) wide.

Jèrriais is a Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an island in the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of France. Its closest relatives are the other Norman languages, such as Guernésiais, spoken in neighbouring Guernsey, and the other langues d'oïl.

The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨f⟩.

<i>Langues doïl</i> Dialects including French and its close relatives

The langues d'oïl are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo-Romance languages, which also include the historical languages of east-central France and western Switzerland, southern France, portions of northern Italy, the Val d'Aran in Spain, and under certain acceptations those of Catalonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-mid back unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ʌ⟩ in IPA

The open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʌ⟩, graphically a rotated lowercase "v". Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as a "wedge", "caret" or "hat". In transcriptions for English, this symbol is commonly used for the near-open central unrounded vowel and in transcriptions for Danish, it is used for the open back rounded vowel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-mid central unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɜ⟩ in IPA

The open-mid central unrounded vowel, or low-mid central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɜ⟩. The IPA symbol is not the digit ⟨3⟩ or the Cyrillic small letter Ze (з). The symbol is instead a reversed Latinized variant of the lowercase epsilon, ɛ. The value was specified only in 1993; until then, ⟨ɜ⟩ was an alternative symbol for the mid central unrounded vowel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Near-close near-front unrounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɪ⟩ in IPA

The near-close near-front unrounded vowel, or near-high near-front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɪ⟩, the small capital I. The International Phonetic Association advises serifs on the symbol's ends. Some sans-serif fonts do meet this typographic specification. Prior to 1989, there was an alternate symbol for this sound: ⟨ɩ⟩, the use of which is no longer sanctioned by the IPA. Despite that, some modern writings still use it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Near-close near-front rounded vowel</span> Vowel sound represented by ⟨ʏ⟩ in IPA

The near-close front rounded vowel, or near-high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman language</span> Romance language of Northwest France

Norman or Norman French is a French dialect which can be classified as a langue d'oïl. The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to describe the administrative languages of Anglo-Norman and Law French used in England. For the most part, the written forms of Norman and modern French are mutually intelligible. The thirteenth-century philosopher Roger Bacon was the first to distinguish it along with other dialects such as Picard and Bourguignon. Today, although it does not enjoy any official status, some reports of the French Ministry of Culture have recognized it as one of the regional languages of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guernésiais</span> Variety of Norman spoken in Guernsey

Guernésiais, also known as Guerneseyese, Dgèrnésiais, Guernsey French, and Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. It is sometimes known on the island simply as "patois". As one of the langues d'oïl, it has its roots in Latin, but has had strong influence from both Old Norse and English at different points in its history.

The International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects complies all the most common applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent pronunciations of the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jèrriais literature</span>

Jèrriais literature is literature in Jèrriais, the Norman dialect of Jersey in the Channel Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Guernsey</span>

The culture of Guernsey in the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a culture which has been shaped by its indigenous Norman language and traditions as well as French and British cultural influences. Cultural trends from immigrant communities such as the Portuguese have also been added.

Sercquiais, also known as lé Sèrtchais, Sarkese or Sark-French, is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Sark.

Auregnais, Aoeur'gnaeux, or Aurignais was the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Alderney. It was closely related to the Guernésiais (Guernsey), Jèrriais (Jersey), and Sercquiais (Sark) dialects of the neighbouring islands, as well as continental Norman on the European mainland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jersey Legal French</span> French dialect formerly used administratively in Jersey

Jersey Legal French, also known as Jersey French, was the official dialect of French used administratively in Jersey. Since the anglicisation of the island, it survives as a written language for some laws, contracts, and other documents. Jersey's parliament, the States of Jersey, is part of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie. The use of the English language has been allowed in legislative debates since 2 February 1900; the current use of French in the States of Jersey is generally restricted to certain limited official state functions and formalities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of the Bailiwick of Guernsey</span>

The linguistic situation of the Bailiwick of Guernsey is quite similar to that of Jersey, the other Bailiwick in the Channel Islands. English is the official language, French is used for administration, there are several varieties of Norman language used by a minority of the population, and Portuguese is spoken by some immigrants in the workforce.

In the Dutch language, hard and soft G refers to a phonetic phenomenon of the pronunciation of the letters ⟨g⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ and also a major isogloss within that language.

The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant,, is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/. When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the in that position since it is followed by a vowel in this case.

References

  1. ↑ 'Guernsey Accent', Guernsey Press and Star , April 6, 2015 Archived April 11, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Members of the States, States of Jersey
  3. ↑ Heinrich Ramisch (2004). Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider (ed.). A Handbook of Varieties of English Volume 1: Phonology. De Gruyter. p. 209.

Further reading

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